Skip to main content

Posts

Herbert Life: Manzoni's Plan for Britain's Motor City.

Herbert Manzoni isn’t exactly a household name—unless your nan's house was knocked down to make way for a ring road. But there’s no denying the mark he left on the city.  Born in 1899, Manzoni trained as a civil engineer before becoming Birmingham’s City Engineer in 1935 and Planning Officer in 1938. With war damage, traffic chaos, and outdated housing pressing down on the city, he saw a rare opportunity to start over. “ Herbert always had a ruler in one hand and the future in the other.” — Charles Bird, Assistant Engineer, Birmingham City Council (1971) Manzoni believed in mobility, efficiency, and clean modern living. Victorian Birmingham, with its cramped back-to-backs and narrow streets, didn’t meet his brief. During his tenure as Birmingham City Engineer and Surveyor (1935–1963), and with housing a major focus of urban redevelopment, he spearheaded some of the most significant and controversial projects in Birmingham’s modern history. His belief that "The slum cannot be...
Post a Comment
Read more
Recent posts

Zen Motoring.

Been driving across the land this week. It's apparent that driving standards have lowered, but it needn't be a race to the bottom. Don't get vexed: simply apply the rules of CPAZM ( Craig Pullen Approach to Zen Motoring). Let people through. Watch as the congestion clears around you; it matters not if a person you don't know gets to their destination before you get to yours. Everyone has lapses of concentration, or gets in the wrong lane occasionally, including you. Forgive them. Don't allow others to draw you into their desire for conflict. It's not your duty to regulate someone else's speed. Move over. They'll be waiting at the lights soon enough; Be the lane change you want to see in the world. Give yourself extra time*, and waiting in a queue just becomes sitting down, listening to a podcast/sick beats, in a comfortable place. Put a hobnob in your obsolete tax disc holder. Don't forget: you are not stuck in traffic: you ARE traffic. *T...
Post a Comment
Read more

Jaguar and the "Wokerati"

The Jaguar Type OO concept. Here it is then. There was always going to be a car. The teaser campaign was just that, a teaser. Somehow, the relaunch of a traditional, and, for most of its history, unsuccessful car company got wrapped up in the culture wars. The new brand's typeface, with its mix of upper and lower case may not be to everyone's taste, resulting in notable commentators decrying it as "woke". Those "woke" slogans? "Copy Nothing" was inspired by Jaguar's founder, Sir William Lyons; a man not known for his progressive politics. Musk tweeting "do you sell cars?", Farage predicting "'Jaguar will now go bust. And you know what? They deserve to". How to square the patriotism of Farage with his will for a company which manufactures and designs cars in the UK to go bust? Those who complain the teaser destroyed Jaguar's heritage seem unaware that ripping up and starting again is an intrinsic part of the company...
Post a Comment
Read more

Biscuits for the Busmeister.

Trip to Warwickshire to see, and bring biscuits (Liebniz, Viennese Whirls, Fruit Shortcake) to my friend Robin Fearn, a.k.a Busmeister, a leading light of the VW T3 scene. Amongst the customer vehicles (Robin has just completed a PD 130 conversion to the recently reupholstered Doka on the ramp), we see his Carat which, when his client order book allows, will receive V8 might from a donor S6, and ride on Porsche Sport Design 18's. Also seen here, Robin's Massala Red panel van, recently converted to MK3 GTi 8v propulsion, the 16v's manifold being too large for the bay. Finally, we see a customer's Doka, with bespoke rear panels and a new A8 subframe, waiting in the paint booth, shortly to receive V8 brawn from an S8. More on Robin here: https://busmeister.com/
Post a Comment
Read more

RIP Quincy

Michael Jackson's back catalogue is on rotation today: 1979's Off The Wall album, his fifth solo, is in my top ten; Rock With You is a spectacular track. Even now, every time I hear it, I'm transported back to the Amnesia terrace in about 1997, with Jason Bye playing it with the sun rising: a 24-carat Balearic moment.  I've always been a Michael Jackson fan, and after all that, er, unpleasantness, I thought hard about the whole separating the art from the artist question. In the end, I couldn't imagine not listening to Off The Wall, or Thriller, or even Bad again.  With the songwriting skillls of Cleethorpes' Rod Temperton, Quincy at the desk, and MJ at the top of his game, the albums are all greater than the sum of their parts. RIP Q. What a career. 
Post a Comment
Read more

Uncharacteristically personal post. Delete if not allowed.

Definitely not a cry for help (I'm FINE), and not attention-seeking (well, no more than usual, any road) and I think I'm writing it to keep a record of it, and offload it: Better out than in (as my dear, sweet, grandmother would say). I've always loved an off-season seaside resort. I enjoy the melancholy vibe. I particularly love this stretch of Welsh *checks* Cambrian coast; the location of many happy family holidays with my parents, brother, aunt, uncle, cousins, and Grandad Evans, who I adored: Funny, mild-mannered, generous: a true role model. He died when I was 12; the first human death I experienced. I think of him often, in fact, every time I wash my face in cold water; something he did every night; he told me so in a holiday cottage not far from here, in Harlech; one of those trivial incidents and conversations which resonate for a lifetime. I've been melancholic for a while, particularly in the last week, where the deaths of people have made me think of mort...
Post a Comment
Read more